Extraction Point
by Osiris-Ra
Summary: Zillion story sky scrapers. Mysterious Operatives. Sawyer and Kate on television. What the heck is going on? Read to find out. Pretty even character distribution, but will turn into an Ana Lucia centric later...[CHAPT 3 UP!]
1. Chapter 1

**EXTRACTION POINT **

**Chapter 1**

The people here were from the same mold. They were all used-to-be's who had crashed and had survived. Their eyes were surreptitious and fiery, darting quickly from person to object, from sky to horizon. Their senses were well oiled, engineered from years of constant running. Among them was a stranger, a quiet girl who smelt of youth but was a wizened presence. Alex was out of her predicament but still suffering from her condition. The condition of them all: Fear and Uncertainty.

The Doctor wrung his smooth hands and strode uneasily around the room.  
"...a plan. Who's got one?" someone uttered.  
"How 'bout not dyin' in the next twenty-four—sounds like a good one to me," said the Southerner, his eyes alit with dissent.  
"But we have to have a way of going about that, James," Locke replied thickly. He set his eyes on the swaggering cowboy.  
"Don't call me that," snarled Sawyer.  
"Hey." Ana Lucia's eyes lanced towards the group. She and Sayid were hunched over The Device, engrossed in its technology.  
"Give us the call," ordered Jack, swiftly meandering over to the table.  
"No call," Said Sayid. "Just numbers. A lot of numbers."  
The Device regurgitated nonsense. The blocky digits kept xeroxing from the warm, vibrating machine endlessly. Jack's brow scrunched.  
"What's it say?" asked Sawyer, looking perplexed.  
"Nothing," Ana Lucia turned away from The Device irately. "It's all a bunch of goddamned nothing. They're not coming."  
"Thanks Dr. Gloom'n'Doom, but I'd rather like the _techie's _opinion—"  
"Look!"  
The young Alex jutted her index finger towards the window.

The impeccable glass of the big window lay transparently between the certain doom of the five-hundred story drop of The Junction, and the disconcerting beauty of an afternoon sky over the empty city. Eight black imperfections marred the cloudless horizon. The people stared, startled.

"It's Them. They're coming for us!" said someone hopefully. The Doctor shook his head. "It's not them."  
"It's not them," Sayid echoed. "It's the Operatives," his eyes lanced with alarm. "They gained a lock on our position."  
"Well how the hell did that happen?!" Sawyer exploded.  
"I don't know—!" Sayid desperately pounded keys on The Device. The machinery had suddenly gone cold. The numbers stopped coming. Paper ceased to spill out. The room filled with an eerie silence.

The helicopter noise grew as a gradual, distant buzz.

Locke stood staring in the window.

"They've been chasing us since fifteen days ago when we started from the island. We lost them two days back, found a secured area, this doesn't make any sense—they shouldn't be here." "_How did they find The Junction_??" someone drove the question home.  
"Maybe it ain't as _secure _as we thought." Said Sawyer.  
"You've been quiet, Kate." Ana looked towards the recumbent fugitive, who stolidly glimpsed at the window where the dark buzzing specks grew in size every ten seconds.  
"Kate?" asked Jack, looking interested. "Are you alright?"  
"I'm fine, Jack. Exactly what are you saying, Ana?"  
"I'm just noticing your vocal capacity's diminished since our last program, frankly I'm worried."  
Kate grinned wryly.  
Suddenly the machine came to life, spitting out paper.  
The helicopter's whizzing blades became distinguished in the distance.  
Sayid knelt, struggling to contain the writhing parchments. Alex crouched nearby, peering over his shoulder curiously.  
"What's wrong with it? Is it Them?" Alex asked, her dark brows knitting together. Sayid stopping trying to gather the paper, and instead sat rigidly, staring at the sheets.

They all bore one word: AMONG

"Among?" Alex's dark eyes set on the back of the Iraqi's head. "What does that mean?" "_Among_..._among_..._something__ among_..." The Iraqi looked over his shoulder.  
"Time to go," murmured Desmond. The ones who listened turned their faces towards the brooding Scotsman.  
"Where, Desmond?" asked Jack, too worried about The Device and the choppers to think about leaving the safe zone. "The Junction's five-hundred stories high, where do you suggest we go, up?"  
"—and we're already on the hundred-and-second – "added Sawyer.  
"We stay here—we die, moving targets are hard to catch," said Desmond coolly. "We separate into groups of four—makes for about four teams for all twenty of us—push forward for the roof."  
"The roof!" exclaimed Boone, rising incredulously from the mahogany settee. "Where do you think those damn _copters _are gonna land...!"  
Jack was shaking his head, "We can't get separated. We've lost too many already, need to stay—to stay together—"  
"Why Jack?" said Desmond, "You're still gonna die alone."  
Jack's eyes drifted towards the window.  
The choppers were large now and loud. Their little red lights pulsed, casting a peculiar crimson sheen on the glimmering black hulls.  
"We have to stay together," murmured Jack.  
The Device started up again, as though it existed as a living entity, controlled by no man and thinking sentiently...perhaps reading minds?  
Kate's eyes lanced towards the machine.  
"Tell me it's Them." Whispered someone, their voice shaking.  
Sayid read the new message aloud: WRONG JUNCTION.  
The room grew still. What did it mean? What the hell did "Wrong Junction" mean?  
Sayid looked up, astounded.  
The Device's steady clicking and whirring subsided.  
The chopper noise grew.  
"Wrong Junction..." Sayid said softly. "Wrong Junction...among. Among."  
"Among the Wrong Junction." Locke murmured.  
"Speak English!" Sawyer's face pulsed red.  
"Wrong way. This isn't the safe zone." Jack lifted his head. "Oh god..."  
"Whaddaya mean this isn't the—"  
"The machine is right here, it HAS to be—"  
"It's not OUR machine."  
"It's a tracer. A beacon." Sayid stood. "This is a decoy room. _Wrong Junction_."  
"Well how the hell'd we get to the wrong _zone_, Ali Baba?"  
"Stop talking!" Jack ordered. "Get the guns, Kate."  
Kate stared.  
"Kate, I said _get the guns_!"  
"Sorry Jack...guns won't help."  
Everyone stared at the fugitive.  
"Kate?" Jack took a step towards her. Kate hysterically sprang to her feet.  
"Kate, Kate Kate, can't you ever say anything else, Jack?! Are you enamoured with 'Kate' Jack?? Who the hell is 'Kate' anyway, Jack?! I don't know any 'Kate'! 'Kate' isn't me! I'm not 'Kate', so stop calling me 'Kate!"  
Tears streamed down her face, but no sound came from her red lips. Jack reached for her arm but she recoiled in disgust.  
"Go, Jack. Take them and get out of here."  
"I'm not leaving you here."  
"Don't you get it, Jack?" Kate leaned towards the Doctor, her wet cheek brushing against his. "It was me. It's what the message meant. _That's how the Operatives found us..._"

The growing thunder in the background began to shake the building. The choppers had arrived. The fleet ascended and with a deafening roar, disappeared over the top of the building, temporarily darkening The Junction. Automatically, everyone looked upward, as if feeling the weight of the landing copters.  
"I'm sorry Jack." Kate said tearfully. "Listen to me..._they're not good people_ –"  
Disdainfully, Jack smiled.  
"Not good people – alright Kate –"  
"They said that they knew the way out – that they had planned everything all along. They told me if I led you to the wrong junction they would protect me and you, Jack. All of us would be safe from the next pulse. They didn't plan _anything_, Jack. The project's out of their control, they have no choice but to shut it down. _That means shutting us down_. They _lied_..."  
Jack couldn't believe what he was hearing. _Austen was the mole...?_  
Faintly, the tear-streaked contours of Kate's cheeks began to pixellate. Her voice grew hollow, and echoed metallically. Her eyes were turning white.  
"They lied..." the fugitive put her hands before her. A milky pearlescent substance crawled up the surface of her skin, writhing and swirling like cold lava, encompassing her arms and gradually turning transparent.  
"Get them to the roof, Jack." She said as the substance devoured her visage. "They'll be safe on the roof..."

Jack stared, horrified, as the fugitive called Kate extinguished.

The room was speechless. Nobody wanted to ask 'what happened to her?' and consequentially 'will that happen to me?' Kate had misled them back at the tarmac. She had said she knew where The Junction was, and she did—because The Others had told her. Kate was a liar, and evidentially, _she_ had been lied to. The true horror was in the question:_ WHEN??_  
"We push for the roof." Said Jack finally.  
Ana Lucia strode towards the three silver Zero Halliburton gun cases and flipped the latches, pushing the lids back. Deftly she slipped a clip in the Beretta.  
The others filtered forward to arm themselves. Knives were handed out, and pistols, even cans of pepper spray, whatever was left.  
Set with a shoulder sling, Desmond shrugged his guns into place.  
"How many troopers can one chopper carry?" asked Jack.  
"Two squads of four." The Scottie replied quickly. "Typical loadout's a P90, Glock 19 or better, stun baton, smoke grenades and flash-bangs—"  
"How do you know all this?"  
"I just do, brotha."

Locke consulted the screen set upon the wall. It was a map. The swirling liquid crystal cells contorted and fused into a layout of the Junction building. Locke pressed his finger on the screen, causing the crystals to bleed RGB. "We go here."  
"Where's that?" Ana stepped up beside him.  
"An elevator. There are four of them in the lobby," Tracing the lift's route, he pressed a path up the graphic, bleeding a yellow and blue trail on the soft surface. "Straight to the top's where we're going."  
Ana appeared uncertain. Then she nodded slowly and murmured: "Straight to the top."  
"Everyone..." Jack grouped the castaways together in an orbit around him. He rotated, observing everyone, quietly doing a head-count and bobbing his index finger.  
"...sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, where's Walt? Walt? Ok, twenty..."  
He double checked.  
Alright, I need three people to lead three teams."  
Sayid quickly volunteered.  
After a moment, so did Ana Lucia.  
John Locke nodded towards Jack.  
"And I make four." Jack said, nodding approvingly.  
Jack proceeded to split them up into groups.  
The groups prepared to leave.

"I want to you to know," Jack told everyone as they stood gathered at the nondescript white door, "that no matter what happens, everyone on your team is your responsibility. It is up to each and every one of you to make sure none of your companions fall behind. It is up to you, team leaders," His stern eyes lanced towards Locke, Sayid and Ana Lucia, "to keep your team together and get them as quickly and efficiently as possible, to the roof. When we leave this room, we will have no way of communicating with each other." His gaze drifted to each person, holding on them for a stern moment, and then drifting on to the next. "I expect to see _all_ of you on the roof."

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**NOTES: **Review please??? Sucky, OK, awesome, weird, good?? I'd love to know. :) Next chapter coming soon! 


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Everyone filtered out through the white door into the uncertainty of the hallway. There was something unnaturally huge about the corridors as they moved through them, circling the square area around the lobby. There were hundreds of doors and infinite entrances (or were they exits?) and thousands of tiles of varying shapes and sizes making up the floors, walls and ceilings. It was as if the place was made of cubes and octagons and triangles. The people walked slowly and apprehensively, like lost children wandering a discarded attic. They followed Mr. Locke into the lobby, and filed before the four elevators. They stood dwarfed by the huge gleaming columns as each leader pushed the 'up' button.

"Guess it's a good thing we ain't pressed for time..." muttered Sawyer. Michael looked anxiously in all directions, his grip on his son's hand tightening until Walt complained.

The elevators simultaneously reached the lobby.

Vincent barked.

The castaways embarked into their respective elevators. The heavy chrome doors slid shut soundlessly.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Inside the first elevator, Jack pressed the red 'roof' button. Idly he blinked around the elevator. It was muggy with the smell of chemicals and sweat. Evidentially, The Junction was impeccably kept and disinfected daily. Everyone had been in the jungle too long. The chemical smell stung and irritated.

"Hold my hand tight, Walt." Michael whispered to his son. Walt complied, and gripped Vincent's leash tighter as well.

The dog barked at Mr. Eko.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

"What happens when we get to the top?" asked Charlie inside the second elevator.  
Mr. Locke raised his eyes to the ascending elevator numbers.

_106th...107th...108th..._

"I don't know, Charlie." Locke replied laconically. "If there's no one there, we try to get to the choppers. If we get caught...we run." "And if we get to the helicopters," Sun said carefully, "who will pilot them?"  
Locke turned to Sun. The whole elevator looked to him for the answer.  
"We'll do our best, Sun." Replied Locke.  
Jin raised his brows and nudged Sun. Sun whispered to him what Mr. Locke had said.  
"I don't mean to sound pessimistic or nothin' mate, but if no one can pilot the damn _choppers_, we're kinda stranded, aren't we?" said Charlie, tilting his head.  
His back turned to the group, Locke grinned. He looked over his shoulder.  
"Don't worry about the helicopters, Charlie, we'll cross that bridge when we get there.You just take care of Claire and Aaron."  
Protectively, Charlie slipped an arm around Claire's waist. Both of them had butterflies. Charlie held her a little tighter.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

In the third elevator, Ana Lucia shifted her weight on the balls of her feet. Her head remained tilted upward, watching the numbers rise.

_217th...218th...219th...  
How fast are we going?  
Will the hall be clear?  
How many bullets...?  
...two clips, I have two clips...  
Who can pilot a chopper??  
...I'm responsible...we all are..._

She eyed the people behind her, reflected in the mirror-like surface of the chrome elevator doors.  
"When we get to the top," she said slowly and as confidently as she could muster, "everyone needs to stay inside the elevator. When I leave, you follow and stay behind me. If someone _bad_ starts shooting, get _down_ on the floor and crawl for cover. Under _no_ circumstances do you panic or run into the open."  
Shannon and Boone stared at the Hispanic's reflection in the elevator door.  
"Have you done this before?" asked Shannon suspiciously.  
Ana looked at the cross-armed blonde.  
"Yes, I have."  
No she hadn't. Not until the Island. She was a rookie. She'd done the training scenarios, filled for backup, rode partnered patrol. Taking point wasn't her specialty, although she was trained for it.  
Ana broadened her posture. "Listen up, follow my lead and hopefully we'll get to the roof in one piece."  
Shannon didn't look convinced.  
"I should warn you," mentioned Boone, looking wry, "my sister isn't so good with the whole listening concept.  
Libby chuckled quietly. Shannon glared daggers at her brother.  
"Shut up, Boone."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

_400th...401st...402nd..._

Sayid tightly gripped his weapon. That time was nearing now. He was ready. Ready to come out shooting if need be. He glanced at the people behind him. He had arranged them into an amateur fire-team. Sawyer and Danielle took up the rear with a hand-gun and a rife respectively, in order that they may lay down covering fire. In the center, a middle-aged former lawyer fingered his knife curiously. Young Alex was armed with three grenades and her trusty slingshot.

"Remember, everyone keep behind me, do not shoot unless you know for certain you can make the shot—"

Sayid's words were interrupted by the sound of an eruption overhead. Alarmed, he looked upwards. A screech of grating metal drove against his eardrums, and presently, the elevator began to shake. The violent quaking of the lift drove everyone inside to their knees. With a nauseating lurch, the elevator dropped, throwing everyone's stomach up into their throats. They were falling now, abruptly and with great speed. Or were they going up very fast? At this speed, anything could be happening. It was like being a piece of dirt sucked into the vacuum intake, or being a granule of cosmic matter pulled into the timeless void of a black hole. The frightening part was, despite the violent rumbling and the horrible screeching of the lift grating against the walls as it fell (upwards or downwards? Does anyone know?), they could still see the four shaking corners of the elevator, the chrome handle-bars, vibrating as if they were alive, and worst of all, the numbers display.

The most frightening thing was the numbers display!

The digits on the number display spun by endlessly, blurring into the 700's, the 800's, the 900's and finally the 1000's, and past and beyond, turning orange and then green and then blue and then red, and at some moment – _no one falling knew_ – they stopped being digits and became something else.

The blurred glyphs finally stopped.

With a lurch, the falling ceased.

The screeching died.

Unconscious bodies were sprawled on the bottom of the elevators.

Music was playing.

Slowly, a voice bled through the silence. It was a strange voice in a strange place. It was Freddy Mercury:

_I'm burning through the sky yeah!  
Two hundred degrees  
That's why they call me Mister Fahrenheit  
I'm trav'ling at the speed of light  
I wanna make a supersonic woman of you_

_Don't stop me don't stop me  
Don't stop me _hey hey hey!_  
Don't stop me don't stop me _ooh ooh ooh_ (i like it)  
Don't stop me don't stop me  
Have a good time good time good time good time good time good time..._

* * *

**NOTES: **Lyric Credit: Don't Stop Me Now - Queen

The madness continues! Please R&R. Thank ya so much. :)_  
_

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	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

When Ana Lucia woke up, it was with the vague recollection of a great passing of time. She felt older somehow. More sure of herself and more cynical.

Ana Lucia looked down at her feet. They were bare. She was wearing jeans, a white "Conspiracy Red" T-shirt and a plaid long sleeved work shirt. She was lying on a grey carpeted floor in front of a wall bearing a large, abstract mural painted in many different vibrant colors.

A panting yellow lab jogged up to her and greeted her with its warm, wet tongue.  
It occurred to her slowly that she was in a house,. The living room of a very nice house with very nice furniture. There was a warm smell of coffee brewing from the direction of the kitchen, and sitting on a nearby blue couch, a little dark haired boy was reading from a small orange book, flopping his slender legs contentedly.

The little boy looked away from his book towards the puzzled woman looking up at him from the floor. He grinned suddenly, and gesturing to the book, he said approvingly, "This is a good book!"

Ana stared.

Presently, Sawyer, Jack and (_holy sh-t!_) Kate squeezed through a back door, engaged in a conversation that had sent Kate into a spurt of laughter.

"So what was I supposed to say, he seemed like a sweet guy, she definitely liked him, sure, I wouldn't have picked a guy that was like a thousand years older than me, but _what_ever!"

Jack laughed. Sawyer slumped down on the couch and grabbed the little boy, tickling him until the boy squirmed away in a giggling fit.

Jack stepped over Ana on his way to the entertainment centre. He pulled open the doors, revealing a sparkling 40 inch television. He turned it on.

"Hey Ana." said Kate, joining Sawyer on the couch. "Why are you on the floor?"  
Ana didn't respond at first. Still bewildered from the complete change of surrounding and mood, she looked up at Jack questioningly.  
Jack smiled good-naturedly.

"Oh wow, you guys have to take a look at this!" Kate exclaimed, enthralled in the television set.  
Jack pulled Ana up and over to the couch. The four (five, counting the boy) stared at the television.

A newscaster stood in the middle of a vast desert, her blonde hair blowing dustily in the gust of several black helicopters landing behind her.

"In the wake of several disturbing reports coming out of the Zone Five area, " the reporter dictated importantly, "an explosion has rocked The Junction, the Zone's newest telecommunications centre. The reason for the explosion is still under debate and officials at the scene still have not yet issued a statement. Witnesses, however, tell a more alarming story."

Kate nudged Jack and Ana excitedly. "They're gonna show us, oh my god!"  
Sure enough, onscreen, a soot covered, hysterical looking Kate was telling the camera what had happened, and gesturing disbelievingly towards the still flaming remains of the once magnificent Junction building.

"I—I don't know what happened—there was just this massive SMASH on the left side of the hundred and second level—my partner -- uh -- Dr. Sheppard issued a building-wide and pulled the alarm—we barely made it out alive..."

Squealing happily, Kate hopped off the couch and ran into the kitchen. She emerged with a six pack of Coors Light and squeezed back into her place on the couch.

Sawyer turned up his mouth. "Are you kidding, Freckles? _Light _beer?"

"Can you believe it?" Kate turned up the volume on the television. "We're on TV!"

"Shhhh!" Ana shushed her up angrily.

Now Sawyer was on the television, tossing his blonde mane and telling his story with much motion and sound effects:

"It was like goddamned _Black Hawk Down_—this HUGE motherfuckin' _chopper _comes _wheelin' _outta nowhere—SMASHES (he smacked his fist into his palm) right into the goddamned side of the building...! I swear, I thought goddamned NEO was gonna fly down from there—it was like a MOVIE...!"

"You watch too much tv, man." Jack grinned. Everyone on the couch, except Ana, broke into chuckles. Sawyer smirked.

"My anti-drug, Jackson."

The reporter continued.  
"...new sources inside the rubble confirm that parts of a helicopter were found..."  
Several in-depth shots of the substantial damage and bewildered onlookers (including a familiar looking African American and two stunned Koreans) cut sequentially to the reporter's voice on the screen. Sawyer sank back into the couch, cracking open a beer.

"Now ain't that a bitch! Whaddaya you think it was? The driver just missed seein' the zillion story-high sky scraper?"

"Maybe it was one of those terrorist attacks." said Kate, sipping her beer.

"I'm sorry," said Ana suddenly, glaring at Kate and Sawyer, "is anyone still aware of the fact that we were just _inside _that building??"

Sawyer, his beer halfway to his mouth, stared. "Well sure we are, sweetie, important thing's that now we're not. Ain't no use thinkin' about it now. Have a beer."

"Thank god no one was hurt," said Jack, reaching for the remote. He changed the channel. "I wonder what those choppers were doing up there, anyway."

Ana stared at her couch companions disbelievingly. "What the hell are you _talking _about—we were _ambushed_! This _bitch _turned us over—they were coming for _us_!"

Kate's eyes lanced towards Ana, confused and hurt.

"Hey, what's your _problem_, chica??" Sawyer exclaimed. "Ain't no call for that kinda language with _kids _in the room—"

"What are you on about, Ana Lucia?" Jack said, frowning. Ana rose from the couch.

"Kate told us she knew where The Junction was at the tarmac—how to get to the extraction point! What she told us was a lie to get us to the wrong _building _because the _Others _bribed her with _escape _or whatever—_tell _them, Kate, you _know _what you did!"

Kate stared blankly. None of this seemed to be registering with her.

"Kate, tell them!!"

"Ana..." Jack spoke carefully, "you need to calm down, alright? Nobody betrayed anybody, nobody lied about anything, okay? Are you feeling alright? You don't look so good."

"Jack—I can't believe this—where's Sayid? Where's Locke? God—we were in an _elevator_..." Ana's head was spinning, "we were gonna get to the roof, get a chopper—the Others were in the building—goddammit, what did you DO Kate?!"

"Lay offa Kate, Ana." Sawyer said in a low voice. "Get in the bathroom and cool off."

"Doesn't anybody remember...?? What happened..._what the hell happened_...?" Ana's vision blurred. The little boy jumped off the couch, squealing and pointing,

"She's gonna faint! She's gonna faint!"

"Somebody catch her—"

"Oh hell—Ana! Ana?? Hey!"

The last sound to meet her ears was that of blood thundering against her eardrums, and then a great, encompassing blackness.

**TO BE CONTINUED**


End file.
